Steve Katz - Kissssss - A Miscellany

“We love you, Eukan Severe, brother mine,” Dojie shouted as she followed the boat. She tossed a neatly wrapped bundle that bounced off the side, and into the water. “Get them,” she shouted. “My gift, just for you.” Ajieck laid his belly across the gunwale and with an oar flipped the packet into the air so Eukan could grab it, then he tore open the packet. His heart convulsed as he showed the contents to Ajieck. It was warmworms, phroa warmworms. This was the first time his sister had ever given him any. He jumped up and down, and waved, and blew kisses at her. Dojie and all her brideys followed them as far as they could, skating laterally along the riverwalk, blowing kisses across the water.

As they drifted down the river the young men leaned against the starboard side of the little boat, and watched Monisantaca retreat from them. Black smoke rose from the smoldering Shoe Riser and, as if in sympathy, Bysbu volcano behind the town sent up puffs of its own, white steam clean as a dream.

“Why did you do that? Why did you burn it?” Eukan asked Ajieck, as they both looked back, their eyes wet with tears.

“I told you, someone had to do it,” said Ajieck. “Now it will burn forever.”

“Forever is a long time,” said Eukan Severe.

“Not if you live only once,” Ajieck Nach responded, then he slapped the wall of the boat. “What do we call this boat? I want to call it Rylinma Noorem , so beautiful and delicious and so sexy. And you built it. And we're on it.”

“It's called Etatreh,” Eukan said.

“You're so serious, so serious about everything. We should give it a sexy woman's name. Mau Ruthnam , for instance. Something to keep us going.”

“Well. I was almost cooked into a barbecue, boy,” Eukan grinned. “I think that's serious. This boat comes from an ancient source; it's like… it's sacred.”

Ajieck shook his head, stroked his chin. “Well… okay, Eukan. Serious it is. This is great. Etatreh it is!” With unparalleled agility he jumped up and balanced on the gunwales as he danced around the boat several times. “This feels so great,” he cried, and then he turned to the town that was almost out of sight. “Listen, you sons of bitches,” he boomed, raising his trombone above his head.

And thus began the independent blockbuster lives of Eukan Severe and Ajieck Nach, chilling and audacious, brazen, dynamic, sometimes relentlessly funny lives of sheer dynamite and devilishly good fun, lives that made them legends in their own time. And thus we know them today from their many features and all their sequels.

be continued…

It was nineteen sixty-nine, in Iowa City,

And I was there. This was not a pretty

Place, but it had some qualities

I enjoyed; a bookstore called Quiddity's

For one, where I went to browse at night,

One tall red-headed clerk, on whom my sight

Was set. It took a while, but that was fine.

I was sure that eventually I'd get to dine

With her at someplace excellent and snug

Where we could intimately converse. It bugs

Me now that I can't remember her name.

Let's call her Helen. I make no real claim

On her memory except that she was there

When this stuff happened that I want to share

With all of you, who I'm sure have paid the price

Of glimpsing Hell when you aim for paradise.

That night I dressed up some, my beloved Borsalino

Crushable hat, bought in Verona, and pressed chino

Pants I wore when I wanted my image to dip

South of hippy. The eatery recommended was a trip

Over dark Iowa roads to another tiny town

And there we ate small birds, like quail browned

And sauced sweet with oranges, and then we talked

Nothings over chocolate cake, and at last we walked

Back out into the Iowa small-town autumn night

Into the smell of harvest and the distant light

Of pig sheds. I breathed in an America I never knew;

Helen stretched a stiff arm to my shoulder, breathed in too,

And suggested we return to Iowa City, where a band…

She knew the drummer, and the singer, and they'd planned

To meet where they played, at the club called Mother's.

We'd get in free, she said. The band was like brothers

To her, she'd known them for so long. We could drink

And dance, and get the evening over with is what I think

She thinks. Am I so boring in my chinos and Borsalino hat,

I wonder; but the evening's trials reached way beyond that.

It was still as a swamp in Iowa City when we returned,

A dank haze off the river. A few street lamps burned,

Dimmer than darkness; the small houses shrunk back

Into their lawns. Outside the club, a long row of black

Choppers leaned on kickstands, watched by one dull

Rider — D.T. Eagles, Chicago, Illinois, around a skull-

And-crossbones, on his leather jacket. His vacant eye

Sucked down on us as a leech onto a wader's thigh.

“This shit looks very deep,” I whispered to my dinner date.

“So? I'm going in anyway,” she told me. “I'm already late.”

Late for what, I thought; nonetheless, I bundled all my fears

And followed Helen in, as I've done for thousands of years.

Admission was free, as Helen had promised. The air

Was gray and stupid with demons. The band took a fair

Stab at happy rock-and-roll. I stood spooked at the door

A moment, then slid inside. On the darkened dance floor

Two bikers, pants at ankles, dipped each other's fudge.

I held onto my hat, as the saying goes, and didn't budge

From my spot against a post. This was no way romantic.

I saw Helen nowhere. Against the wall some frantic

Undergraduate couples, all dressed up, were trapped

In a booth as bikers climbed the boothbacks and snapped

Belts at them and pissed into their beer. When the band

Wanted a break, all the bikers turned, each raising a hand

In fascist salute. Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Until

They played again. It was a triumph of the bikers' will.

I remembered noticing, as we drove into town, the police

Station, usually well-lit, was asleep, cops hiding in the crease

Of their disadvantage. I saw Helen now crouched behind

The drummer. She didn't look for me. Never mind.

Her pal was six-foot-six, and black, and very wide,

Certainly more fit and eligible than I to save her hide.

Then it happened as in confusion I was standing there

That one good gentleman of the D.T. Eagles came to stare

Into my face. He was a smaller, sober officer of their dim

Celebration, who held a garbage bag of pills. From him

His cohorts grabbed a random mix of ‘ludes, white crosses,

Black beauties, pinks and blues, and by handfuls tossed

Them down like mindwarp jelly beans. His eyes laced

Red with grim mischief, he removed my Borsalino, placed

His greasy leather snapbrim on my brow and donned

My dear fedora. Goodbye, Borsalino. I was stupidly fond

Of that hat, but didn't know what to do to get it back.

The dark gentleman, I never learned his name, Jack

We'll call him, strutted around the room under his new

Loot. I was powerless beneath his leather cap, when two

Snorting bikers several semis wide arrived in my face.

“That hat, where the fuck did you… ” This growl could erase

Six books of Paradise Lost . “It's all right,” someone said,

Lucky for me. “He's Jack's boy,” making me sound dead.

But to my relief, indeed my glee, it turned out Jack

Was an honest biker. He circulated twice then gave it back

To me. My Borsalino on my head again, on his the leather cap.